


Behind Enemy Lines

by Olorisstra



Series: Nobody Wins 'verse [3]
Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-14
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2018-06-08 07:15:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6844540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Olorisstra/pseuds/Olorisstra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>or Eleven Scenes From A More Shadowy Side Of The War.</p><p>Not everyone was on the front line.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Behind Enemy Lines

**Author's Note:**

> This is unbetaed.
> 
> I apologize in advance, but trying to work around how Jedi ranks in the GAR work when I haven't yet sat down with the people who are helping me figure out the GAR structure and brainstormed most of it was making my head hurt (especially because they have one Commander and then it's all Generals no matter how high you are, until you hit Senior or High General), so I'm going with US Army structure for the GAR and US Navy structure for the Navy using these two charts:  
> http://www.aviationexplorer.com/Military_Insignia_Rank_Structure_Charts/US_Military_Enlisted_Ranks_All_Branches_Of_Service.jpg  
> http://www.aviationexplorer.com/Military_Insignia_Rank_Structure_Charts/US_Military_Officer_Ranks_All_Branches_Of_Service.jpg  
> Aside from High General (that takes the place of General of the Army) and Senior General (who is an intermediate rank one step above a General and a step under General of the Army).

There is a tide in the affairs of men,  
Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.  
Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.  
On such a full sea are we now afloat.  
And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures. 

William Shakespeare

* * *

On day one, the then Senior General had gathered them all together in front of the waiting Venator-class Star Destroyers, the lower ranked Jedi lined up behind him, from General Levas to Colonel Rabak. 

Behind them, the four beings clusters of the Jedi Squads assigned to them had stretched out, each unit composed by three Majors and one Lieutenant Colonel in command. Behind them, the Jedi Corps members assigned to their mission had stood, the last and most important part of the Jedi Contingent.

* * *

"No." The Senior General decided, calmly. "That is a trap and I do not see any reason to send perfectly well trained men to spring it. We have at least three more ways I can think of to obtain those informations, without needing to sacrifice any ouf our troops."

"It will delay us!" Admiral Shassak countered, bristling. "You do realize these _experiments_ were created exclusively to fight, don't you?"

The Senior General didn't blink, elegant fingers touching the pieces on the board, guiding them into new positions, without giving the Admiral's bluster any particular attention. CC-499 watched him study the map and then nudged a piece, into one of the new configurations the 1st officers had come up with.

"I do realize that these men were created and trained to be best soldiers the Galaxy will have ever known." He finally agree, while also quite clearly disagreeing, just when Admiral Shassak was about to explode again, if the color of the Admiral's face was anything to go by. "It would be disrespectful _and_ wasteful of me to simply toss their lives away on the battlefield when we can push the trap to spring itself and reap a much more satisfying result." 

When the Senior General looked up at the Admiral, his eyes were mild, his expression soft and warm in a way that felt deeply non-committal to CC-449. He looked every inch the Jedi Master, the feeling of an undefinable _something_ irradiating from him and giving him an aura of command that no blustering in the world could have afforded to Admiral Shassakh.

"This will do." The Senior General nodded. He turned his head and caught CC-449's eye. "Commander CC-449." He called, his voice never rising above the level of polite conversation, his accent dignified and elegant as the man was.

"Sir, yes sir Senior General!" He replied, snapping at attention, watching riveted as the Senior General's eyes warmed with satisfaction and approval. It made him feel as if he could have taken on the Head Clanker itself, and win, as long as his Senior General kept looking at him that way.

"We will use manuver 2-4 version 3, notify River Company and Pathfinder Company to prepare to disembark and land four clicks from their final positions." The Senior General instructed him, voice pleasant, his head tilting just the lightest bit. "Given the atmospherical difficulties, inform the officers that should communications fail, I will be relaying any further orders through Lieutenant Colonel Sailea and Lieutenant Colonel Myrdinnian."

"Sir, yes sir Senior General!" CC-449 confirmed, with a sharp nod and a perfect salute.

"Thank you, Commander CC-449." The Senior General smiled again, the sense of his approval curling around CC-449 and sinking him down in a heat that warmed him down to his bones. "If you can find a moment with him, deliver my compliments to Commander Logos of River Company for his excellent use of tactics. Inform him and the troops that he will be leading this operation."

"Sir, yes sir Senior General!" CC-449 repeated, for the third time, and then turned on his heel and marched out of the room, aware of the way Admiral Shassak started chiding the Senior General for his 'unseemly fondness for those experiments' as soon as CC-449 back was turned and indulging in a couple of fantasies about accidents that would end with the son of a bantha shoved out of an airlock.

Those thoughts entertained him all the way down to the hangar where the troops were waiting for their orders to come down, still standing where they had been when the General had addressed them earlier, in person, to explain which planet they were above, why it was important and what they were hoping to accomplish here.

He could have just commed them and told them what he had been asked to report, but the Senior General had insisted from the first evening that orders had to be relied in person if at all possible.

 _"I am ordering these men off to what could very well turn out to be their deaths."_ The Senior General had told him, watching over the newly-opened-to-clone-officers senior staff lounge where the clone officers were eating side by side with the Jedi. 

_"I will see each of them off personally and, in case I won't be able to, I will send you to see them off for me. Not one of you is a faceless, expendable being to me, Commander CC-449, and I will_ not _give any of you the disrespect of hiding behind comms when it comes to send you into battle, just because it would be easier not to see you suit up and go. I honor your sacrifices, in this way as well as in others."_

CC-449 could quote any of his Senior General's explanations or speeches, word for word, but this was one of his favourites, the one that reminded him that for all of the dread he had felt for being put under an unknown commander in chief, he had actually ended up with the best officer he could have ever dreamed to work with. Or for.

"River Company, Pathfinder Company you are up!" He called, watching the soldiers step forward in perfect unison, each with their own Jedi Squad flanking them. He could see the pride in the line of his brothers' shoulders and the dismay that ran through the other Companies as they started dispersing from the hangar, as procedure dictated.

"Senior General Kail apologizes for not being able to be here in person." He informed them, because his Senior General might not have said so out loud, not in front of Admiral Shassakh, but CC-449 knew the Zeltron well enough to know that he would have wished for CC-449 to deliver his apology too. "High General Yjil was waiting on the comms to know the final strategy." 

No one made a sound, no one _dared_ to be as direspectful as to make one. There was no murmurs, no comments and CC-449 was sure that every soldier standing there understood and didn't begrudge their General his duty. It wasn't as if the General wasn't going to be with them down on the ground, in his own way.

"The coordinates and maps are being updated on your units as we speak. You entry point will be four clicks north-west of your actual positions and you will deploy under Commander Logos command using manuver 2-4 version 3." He reported, dutifully. "As the atmospherical conditions have been reported as a potential source of interference with your communication, Senior General Kail will be keeping abreast of news and in contact with you through Lieutenant Colonels Sailea and Myrdinnian."

As one, the troops saluted, chorusing their own "Sir, yes sir Commander!", the two Lieutenant Colonels nodding to each other, and to him, with polite respect, to signify their understanding of their orders.

"Lets see if we can lower our wounded rates at 0,9% and our dead rates at 0,5% soldiers!" He ordered. "May the Force be with you!"

"And with you, sir!" Two Companies and two Jedi squads replied, voices ringing in the hangar with the strength of their words and faith into the Force siding with them on this.

"Dismissed!"

* * *

On day one, the then Senior General had explained to them that they weren't going to head into battle on the front lines, because they had been given a far more important mission than to contrast the advancing of the enemy.

They were going to root their factories out and raze them to the ground, so that the number of clankers lowered and lowered until there would be no more of them produced to bring death and destruction to the Republic and their brothers on the first lines.

It was going to be a dangerous, mostly undercover mission. One that was going to take them deeper into Separatist Space than any other unit, through unconventional routes.

They were not going to have logistical support aside what they could provide on their own, if they lost men their ranks would not be replenished, if they ended up backed in a corner no reinforcements would arrive, when they stocks were going to inevitably end up running low it was going to be up to them to provide their own supplies, their wounded would not be moved to hospital but treated on the spot and set to recovery in the already available space.

* * *

Stitches watched Hardass go limp on the gurney and then nodded to the woman sitting cross legged by his side. 

Fil'A nodded back at him and closed her eyes, the air around her starting to humm softly as she sunk deeper into meditation and, as far as Stitches had understood it, guided Hardass along, to keep him under and unaware of the pain his body was in, despite their lack of appropriate painkillers.

They didn't exchange words as he took the laser saw controls and guided it to start the amputation just below Hardass' knee, removing the part of his leg that was too mangled to save, with the limited medical resources at their disposal.

It wasn't a long operation, luckily, nor a particularly difficult one. The complicated part was the second operation, the one that would install the the connections needed for Hardass' knee to attach seamlessly to the leg the Tech Corps Majors on board of the Horizon were already building.

It was going to be made, Stitches had been told, out of the metal the Tech Corps had recovered from the ruins of the clanker factory and the on-site clanker remains of those who had opposed them. He thought Hardass was going to like his.

Stitches had seen some of their prosthesis already. They were beautifully conceived things, with top of the line functionality as well as ornamental embellishements, conceived to commemorate the battles already fought by the soldier wearing it while also leaving space for more mementos to be added.

No one was ever going to be happy to lose a limb, but at least Hardass was going to get something that was much more meaningful and useful than the few cheap replacements the Republic had seen fit to outfit their Star Destroyers stock with.

The leg gave way and BT-2993N moved in to remove it from the table and take it to the portable cryo-container where it would rest until Hardass decided if he wanted to bury it somewhere, have it incinerated or what.

"First operation done with." Stitches said out loud and nodded to Bitty, who went to the doors and let in medic Bya'Nae and the Dawn's own head tinkerer Sumivil, who carried the tray of connectors Bya'Nae and Stitches were going to have to outfit Hardass' with.

"I think your brother might be trying to romance me." Fil'A commented, quietly, making Sumivil snort and Bya'Nae laugh softly.

"Don't take it personally. Hardass has been known to romance even with rocks, as long as they are sentients." Stitches recommended, examining the various pieces and then nodding to Sumivil, who set the tray on the support Bitty had hurried to position by the bed.

"His technique needs pointers." Fil'A replied, sounding deeply amused. "And I can see that even as a Jedi."

"If she thinks Jedi don't know how to flirt she's been hanging around with the wrong crowd." Sumivil whispered, making Bya'Ne chuckle even as she threw him a reproaching look. The Nautolan shrugged and handed her the first piece with a cheeky wink.

Stitches shook his head and took up his scalpel, waiting for Bya'Ne's go ahead to start cutting on the highlighted lines Bitty was making the overhead holo-projector display on Hardass' stump.

* * *

On day one, the then Senior General had informed them that they were going to see very little action in the field and amounts of training in between those rare moments that would make the Kaminoan routines look like child's play.

They were going to develop new action manuvers, protocols and schemes of attack that relied on full cooperation and precise coordination between the Jedi Squads and the Squads they would be assigned to and between those groups and the rest of the GAR.

They were going to practice until even blind, deaf and concussed each soldier was going to know where to step and when to do it both in close quarters and in the wide open, terrain allowing, the Senior General had sworn.

* * *

"THESE SHIPS ARE NOT A PLAYGROUND FOR BORED EXPERIMENTS!" Shassak thundered, his voice loud enough to be heard all the way outside the officer's lounge.

"It's always like this?" Newly minted Knight Colonel Mixa asked quietly to Master Brigadier General Qualeth.

"Depends on whether or not we manage to run manuvers that don't spill in Admiral Shassak's path." Hir replied, with what looked like an avian version of a shrug. 

For a six feet tall humanoid bird, hir had turned out to be much more welcoming and willing to explain than, say, her fellow Colonel, fellow Knight and fellow Mirialan Zine, a Shadow Knight who tended to look at Mixa as if her choice to follow the specialized path of a healer somewhat made her unsuited for a command position.

"Is someone going to get into trouble over it?" She asked, enjoying the moment of reprieve during which Master Senior General Kail replied to Admiral Shassak, his voice inaudible on the outside.

"THAT'S WHAT YOU SAID LAST TIME TOO!" Admiral Shassak replied, furiously.

"Oh there will be reprimand and the losing Company will be on maintenance duty for a week." Master Brigadier General Qualeth replied, unconcerned. "And they will get a bottle per squad of Corellian ale, for managing to up the ante and get more paint splotches on the Admiral than Dome Company."

Mixa blinked and then pressed her lips thinly together, to keep her laugh inside.

She planted her eyes when the door opened, snapping at attention when the door to the officer lounge swung open, letting out a polite "-- Force be with you." in Master Senior General Kail's voice.

Admiral Shassakh stalked past her and Qualeth without even snarling a salute. Mixa still remained still until the man's footsteps disappeared around the corner.

"Ah." Senior General Kail smiled, seeing her and Qualeth when they snapped out of their positions and peeked inside, of silent and common agreement. "Just the two beings I was waiting for. Please, come in."

The officer lounge seemed cozier and warmer than it had ever been before, the Master Senior General's presence somehow making it feel far more welcoming than it usually was. The air was full with the fragrant aroma of Mirial blood seed's tea, Mixa's personal favourite, and there was a steaming teapot on a self-warming tray on the table the General had seated himself at.

"We are going to set ourselves on a nearby inhabited planet for the next three weeks, while we wait for the heat of our last strike to die down and for the Separatist patrols to let up." The Zeltron informed them, filling each of them a cup and serving them with the steady hand and elegant flourish of a Tea Ceremony Master.

It was incredibly flattering to be informed of this personally, while cradling an exquisite Aldeeranian teacup, the scent of the blood seed tea filling her senses.

"After me and Brigadier General Sailea, you have been the most successful in leading your Companies meditation exercises." Master Senior General Kail commented, with a light smile that warmed his features and made him look terribly more handsome. If Mixa had had any sexual proclivities, she'd have been in such trouble. She couldn't help but be grateful that she could only recognize his beauty in the abstract, objective sense.

The meditation exercises were part of the training program the Master Senior General had come up with to fill the long stretches of inaction they often found themselves into. It was time they needed to spend waiting, during which he and the other members of the command staff with nets of contacts in the Separtists sectors of the galaxy waited for informations to make their way back to them, to highlight new objectives, or for their pursuers to give up their rapidly cooling leads.

It was set in rotations, to go with the shifts, and it had been slotted to happen three times a day per each Company, one before each meal. Extra-sessions were allowed to be held in case of unrest or if the Jedi leading the meditation picked up on something they wanted to help their soldiers work out. Private sessions between Jedi and single soldiers had been known to happen, too.

They were a therapy tool, to help the men as well as the Jedi in dealing with the consequences of actual active fighting, as much as a way to attune themselves to each other and all of them to the chain of command, in general, and to Master Senior General Kail, in the specific. His reputation as a Battle Meditation Master, and one of the most well versed meditation experts of the whole Temple, was well known to every member of the Order onboard, Knights and Corps in equal measure.

Although he had yet to physically leave the command ship during a battle, the Zeltron had been with the deployed soldier and Jedi through each and every battle, guiding them to their victory from the observation lounge where he retired during those stretches of time. 

His presence was never stronger than the feel of the Force itself. A delicate touch that, Mixa knew from experience, was capable of linking her to all other sentient beings on the field on their side. It boosted their energy, made them aware of each other on levels she had never been able to reach on her own before or since.

He had used it to watch over them, as they put in practice their hard-earned coordination. He had kept company to the wounded and stood by the dying as they became one with the Force, leaving no one behind to be alone. Leaving no one to be forgotten.

She nodded, not sure of what to say, and, out of the corner of her eye, noticed Qualeth do much the same.

"I pray for you to understand that what I am about to ask is absolutely not mandatory and that I wouldn't think any less of you for refusing." The legend-in-the-making said, his expression growing more serious, his eyes earnest as the Force positively sang with the truth of his words.

Mixa's heart picked up.

"I would like for you to join the select number of officers I am teaching the basics of Battle Meditation to." Master Senior General Kail asked, unashamed of the regard for them and the hope that showed in the lines of his face as he sipped his tea, leaving the decision fully in their hands.

For a couple of endless seconds, Mixa forgot to breathe.

* * *

On day one, the then Senior General had told them that they weren't all going to come back. Not just the clones. The staff, the Knights, the Corps too. They were all going to suffer hits, they were all going to risk their lives, no matter how prepared they were.

He wasn't going to promise them they would triumph or that they would be celebrated. This was not to be their lot, he explained. Their lot was to toil and work in the darkness and under everyone's notice and to be the ones whose life were going to be spent as the credit chips needed to buy victories for their brothers and comrades.

What he promised them, was that no one would be left behind, that no matter the cost no body was going to be abandoned to scavengers, no armor left to rust on foreign planets, no bucket forgotten behind or abandoned.

They were going to make their sacrifices would be worth the price paid.

Their names, buckets and numbers were not going to be forgotten.

* * *

"He was completely out of line!" Shassak snarled. "Utterly out of his mind! Risking resources to recover useless corpses!" He ranted.

"You!" He snapped at the experiment in charge of the communications array. "Get me High General Yijl!"

"Belay that order, Specialist CS-7774." Commander CC-449 countered, it's cheap imitation of the Senior General's Coruscanti accent unmistakable. Shassak whirled around, astonished that a cobbled up together copy of a _Mandalorian_ would dare to countermand _him_.

"I apologize sir, but I wouldn't want to lose your leadership just because you decided to file a report on a superior who just engineered and carried off the complete destruction of two droid factories with minimum losses." The meat clanker said, it's face as exprensionless as it always was when he addressed a superior officer.

Shassak closed his mouth with an audible click of teeth. 

The experiment had a point, but that was just the excuse it was offering to Shassak to bow out honorably enough, if losing face with the command crew on deck. It made the thing's words sound as if High General Yijl might remove Shassak from his command.

Looking, as he was, in the meat clanker's disturbingly grey eyes, left Shassak sure that the words were just polite fiction. If he didn't let his complaint go and allow the Senior General to run unchecked, the experiment wasn't going to have any compuntion to execute him right then and there. On the command deck and in full view of a crew of copies whom, he was sure, would let him bleed out without a word, if it kept him from reporting their stubbornly nonsensical Senior General.

He was, he realized, at the complete mercy of the whims of the experiments and the leash he had thought to hold above them, as an Admiral and their superior, only actually rested in the Senior General's hands.

"I see your point." He agreed, after a moment. "I will retire to the officer lounge and see about the paperwork." He added, towards the Captain he'd been assigned. He'd always despised the fact that all of his crew was composed of experiments, but now.

Now he was scared of them too.

"As you wish, sir." Commander CC-449 agreed, emotionless like the drone it was.

Oh, how Shassakh missed the Loberian Army every day more.

He couldn't know, wouldn't have even stopped to consider that, on the other side of the room, CC-449 was entertaining similar thoughts. Thoughts not unlike:

Oh, how CC-449 regretted not having his Senior General's permission to just space Admiral Shassakh.

What the Zeltron had asked Jedi Squad Aurebesh and Benarel to do had indeed been risky and even possibly fool hardy. Both River and Ocean Companies had certainly mounted the beginnings of a riot when they had been informed they were not going to be going with their Jedi.

It had taken the Senior General himself sitting down with the men and working them through the maps, the terrain, the new droid presence, the difficulties and odds, to convince them that to leave them behind wasn't a slight against their capabilities but simply the most expedite way to achieve retrieval of the fallen's bodies and armor without leading to discovery or more death.

Even then, the troops hadn't be able to calm down, anxiety ratcheting up at being too far from their Jedi for comfort, definitely too far away to intervene should they notice something that might escape the Jedi. There had been episodes of metaphorical clinging that were both undignified and unworthy of the men, episodes that CC-449 would be working on correcting as soon as they were out of danger. 

The Senior General had to finally resort to gather permission from both his outbound Jedi and his inbound troops to lead a shared meditation. He had personally sat down in front of the troops, leading them into a deep meditation trance, during which he had delicately broadcasted what he could feel from the Jedi Squads on the ground, allowing the soldiers to pass along suggestions and helping them watch onto their Jedi even from afar.

They had suffered no casualties and no injuries and all bodies had been recovered, for them to properly honor with Mando'a and Jedi ceremonies. All the armor had been brought back, to join the ones already decorating the hallways in memory of the fallen. All the helmets had been taken home, to be given to friends and squad mates of their few dead, to be mounted on the walls of their barracks in memory of those that had gone ahead in the Force.

A prejudiced, elitist piece of poodoo like Admiral Shassak, who had only gotten his post because of his time with the death commandos of his own planet and showed exactly the completely lack of morals and ethics someone of _that_ ilk would have, had no fucking right or place to go around badmouthing CC-449's General.

**Author's Note:**

> If everything goes well, Part 2 will be going up tomorrow :)


End file.
